Carolyn Dorin Ballard

Personal and Family

Carolyn's father was a POW during World War II.

Carolyn is married to PBA Hall of Famer Del Ballard Jr., whom she met in college. The couple has a daughter, Alyssa, and the family now resides in Keller, TX. She is also the sister of top female bowler, former PWBA member and current TV bowling analyst Cathy Dorin-Lizzi. Her brother-in-law (Cathy's husband), Jeff Lizzi, was also a member of the PBA.

In bowling circles, Carolyn is often referred to by just the initials, "CDB."

Bowling career

Carolyn attended West Texas State University on a partial bowling scholarship. While there, She led the University to back to back national titles and was a 3 time All-American. She was the MVP of the Intercollegiate Bowling Championships in 1989. She graduated in 1989, with a B.A. in Communications.

In the existence of the PWBA Tour, Carolyn was one of its top bowlers. Carolyn had 20 Tour titles over a 14 year career (1990–2003). Carolyn won her first title in a doubles tournament in 1991 with her partner, Lisa Wagner, who was one of the top bowlers on the tour in the 1980s. With the support of her sister and husband, her career took off in 1994, when she began a string of 8 titles in 4 seasons beginning with her first singles title, the Lady Ebonite Classic. In that period she was the runner up in the Player of the Year voting all 4 seasons.

In 2001, she had her career year. She won 7 titles, posted an average of 214.73, was Player of the Year, and earned $135,045 in prize money. She received many honors this year including nomination for an ESPY award. She broke 8 tour records that season.

Her career totals were 20 PWBA titles, 2 Player of the year awards, 3 major titles (1997 and 2001 Brunswick World Open, 2001 WIBC Queens), and 3 WIBC Titles (2000 All-Events Champion, 2001 Team Champion, 2004 Doubles Champion with Lynda Barnes). She was a 7-time WIBC All American and 6-time Bowlers Journal All-American. Before the PWBA disbanded, she had moved up to 6th on the all-time Tour earnings list (over $910,000). She won two PBA Women's Series titles (2007 Great Lakes Classic and 2008 Cheetah Championship). She also won the PBA Women's Series Showdown, a non-title event held in April, 2009.

In 2006, she joined top female bowlers from around the world in the USBC Women's Challenge tournament. The event took place on a single lane, in the middle of a shopping mall in Las Vegas, Nevada. This event was particularly challenging, because all of the distractions of a mall (music, voices, people walking in the upper level) were present during the entire tournament. She made it to the semi-finals where she was defeated by Clara Guerrero. (Guerrero would go on to lose to Cara Honeychurch in the final.)

The only major missing from Dorin-Ballard's resume is the U.S. Women's Open, although she has made the semi-finals five times (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010) with runner-up finishes in the 2003 and 2009 events.

Carolyn is known as one of the best female bowlers of all time, and at the Kegel training center also has the title of being the most accurate player in history of the testing center, hitting the exact target over 30 times in a row at exactly the same speed. During the PBA Women's Series Showdown in 2009, CDB rolled 21 consecutive strikes over two games to earn the distinction of rolling the most consecutive strikes in the history of televised bowling. Currently a Roto Grip staffer, Carolyn is representing the brand with her recent bowling with Team USA and is on the roster to bowl the PanAmerican games this current year. She was part of Team USA in 2011—the team that went to the WTBA World Women's Championships in Hong Kong and took home gold for the United States in the team event for the first time since 1987.